Piers Bullies, Silences Gun Advocate; Calls Him Liar

MORGAN: Now, you can see, this is an astonishing picture. This is a car outside Sandy Hook school. That is a bullet hole from a ricochet bullet fired from inside the school. Look at the power. Look at the impact. Imagine what that was doing to a little child of 6 or 7.

Now, John Lott, your answer is more guns makes America safe, even though you look at the statistics, you have 300 million in circulation and you have the worst gun murder rate of any of the wealthy countries of the world by a massive multiple.

How do you justify the claim more guns makes more safe people in America? I don’t — don’t get it.

JOHN R. LOTT, JR., AUTHOR, “MORE GUNS, LESS CRIME”: Every place that guns have been banned, murder rates have gone up. You cannot point to one place, whether it’s Chicago or whether it’s D.C. or whether it’s been England of whether it’s been Jamaica or Ireland…

(CROSSTALK) MORGAN: That’s a complete lie.

LOTT: It is not!

MORGAN: It’s a complete lie!

(CROSSTALK)

MORGAN: The gun murder rate in Britain is 35 a year average!

LOTT: Do you understand…

MORGAN: You need to stop repeating a blatant lie about what happened in other countries!

LOTT: Look, sir…

MORGAN: Thirty-five gun murders a year…

LOTT: You don’t — you…

MORGAN: No, you’re not going to get away with this!

LOTT: No! Just one…

MORGAN: You lied about it the other day!

LOTT: Sir…

MORGAN: Thirty-five gun murders a year in Britain, 11,000 to 12,000 in America!

LOTT: You…

MORGAN: Stop…

(CROSSTALK)

LOTT: No! You don’t even understand simple math!

MORGAN: What you say drives Americans…

LOTT: Can I explain something…

MORGAN: … to go and buy weapons…

LOTT: Well, there’s a difference between…

MORGAN: … to defend themselves!

LOTT: … saying something’s low and that it increased. What I say is there’s lots of reasons why murder rates differ across countries. But when a ban is put on, it still may end up being lower than someplace less, but it went up! There’s not one place…

MORGAN: Christiane… LOTT: Everybody knows…

(CROSSTALK)

LOTT: Do you understand the difference between changes…

AMANPOUR: I do, sir. I do, yes.

LOTT: OK, and what happened after ’97 to the murder rate in England?

AMANPOUR: After Dunblane, they put in these bans. They put in these punishments, fines, jail sentences, et cetera. And it’s true that straight afterwards, there wasn’t a huge change. But in 2002, 2003, until 2011, the rate plummeted by 44 percent.

LOTT: But it was still higher…

AMANPOUR: That’s match.

LOTT: … than it was in ’96!

AMANPOUR: (INAUDIBLE) going down…

(CROSSTALK)

MORGAN: Let me bring in — let me bring in…

(CROSSTALK)

MORGAN: Let me bring in Deepak Chopra…

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: Also in Australia!

(CROSSTALK)

LOTT: Americans know what happened in Chicago and D.C.!

MORGAN: With respect, you’ve had your turn.

LOTT: Everybody…

MORGAN: I — listen, I’ve heard what you…

LOTT: But you’ve been calling me a liar!

(CROSSTALK)

MORGAN: You said the murder rate soared in Britain. It hasn’t.

(CROSSTALK)

LOTT: I said it went up.

MORGAN: Let me ask Deepak Chopra this…

(CROSSTALK)

MORGAN: If you don’t mind, sir, show some respect to the other guests.

LOTT: (INAUDIBLE)

MORGAN: Show some respect to the other guests. We’re talking about today.